Agriculture Good for Wildlife, Growers Told

By Kevin Bouffard

BONITA SPRINGS | Wildlife and citrus can co-exist in Florida.

“We believe keeping agriculture in the state is good for wildlife,” Nick Wiley, executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, told several hundred growers during educational seminars Thursday morning at the Florida Citrus Industry Annual Conference in Bonita Springs.

The commission has spent the last two years reforming its procedures and regulations dealing with imperiled species, Wiley said. It has worked with citrus and agriculture and other interest groups.

One proposed change is eliminating the need for a state permit for species already listed on the federal endangered or threatened lists, he said.

Florida has 64 species on the state list of imperiled species, including the sandhill crane and Florida pine snake, Wiley said, but 16 species, including the Florida black bear and alligator snapping turtle, have been recommended for removal.

The commission is working on a series of voluntary best management practices for farms and ranches to assist in protection of the remaining imperiled species, he said.

The practices “could play a large role in our success,” Wiley said.

The practices deal with water usage to protect wetlands and application of fertilizers, herbicides and other farm chemicals to protect wildlife, he said. A complete list of recommended practices should be completed by the end of the year and would be submitted to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for approval.

Most of the other presentations dealt with short-term strategies for dealing with citrus greening, a deadly bacterial disease threatening the future of commercial citrus growing in Florida.

The Citrus Research and Development Foundation Inc. in Lake Alfred, the University of Florida affiliate overseeing disease research, has spent $66 million in its first three years, Chief Operating Officer Harold Browning said. It has financed 228 research projects during that time.

The foundation will be monitoring 129 projects when its 2012-13 fiscal year begins on July 1, he said. Its budget calls for spending $17 million, down 13 percent from $19.5 million this year.

Participants also heard from Greg Carlton of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who is overseeing the Citrus Health Management Area (CHMA) program. A CHMA is a voluntary coalition of growers within a designated area that coordinate pesticide spraying and other measures to control spread of the Asian citrus psyllid, which carries the greening bacteria.

Florida has 38 CHMAs covering 486,079 acres, or 96 percent of Florida’s commercial citrus acreage, Carlton said.

While it’s impossible to eradicate psyllids in Florida, the CHMAs have resulted in up to a 69 percent decline so far this year in the number of groves reporting less than 10 psyllids per survey, said Michael Rogers, an entomologist with the Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.

The CHMAs are important because research tracking psyllid movements shows the insects can travel 1.25 miles within 11 days, said Lukasz Stelinski, also an entomologist at the Lake Alfred center. The insects move continuously during the citrus season.

His research demonstrates psyllids can easily move from so-called “bad neighbors,” groves that make little or no effort to control the insects, into nearby groves, Stelinski said. That compromises the efforts of growers in CHMAs and elsewhere attempting to control psyllids.

In other presentations, Taw Richardson, CEO of AgroSource Inc., said use of an abscission chemical could increase the productivity of hand harvesting by up to 50 percent, which could save growers an estimated savings $215 to $330 per acre. The chemical loosens the bond between the tree stem and fruit.

AgroSource has a contract with the Florida Department of Citrus to supervise federal approval of the abscission chemical known as CMNP. U.S. Environmental Agency officials have indicated a decision would come by February, Richardson said.

Researchers at the Lake Alfred center initially developed CMNP to increase efficiency of mechanical harvesting, which is viewed as a long-term solution to cost and supply issues with manual harvesting.

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